Update: City Cop Charged In Animal Cruelty Case

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Wednesday, March 5, 2014
WBAL Radio

Alec Taylor, arrested for animal cruelty. (Montgomery County Police)

A Baltimore City police officer was arrested for intentionally and cruelly killing a seven-month-old puppy. Alec Eugene Taylor, age 27, is now charged with aggravated animal cruelty and abuse or neglect of an animal.

The puppy was his girlfriend's, who Taylor allegedly texted a photograph of what appeared to be a lifeless dog. Taylor killed their seven-month-old Jack Russell Terrier named Rocko.

Taylor told his girlfriend that he was tired of cleaning up the dog’s defecation and that he had beaten the dog with a mop. He also said that he had placed the deceased dog in a dumpster in the parking lot. She later asked him if he could remove Rocko from the dumpster so that she could bury the dog. She returned home from work, retrieved the deceased dog from a shoebox on the apartment balcony, and buried the dog at a neighborhood park in Hyattsville.

Montgomery County Police-Animal Services Division responded to the girlfriend's complaint, made earlier in the day.

A necropsy was performed -- the animal version of an autopsy. It identified the likely immediate cause of death as acute hemorrhagic shock likely due to blood loss from liver damage caused by blunt force trauma shortly before death.

Taylor informed Animal Services officers that he used a mop to force Rocko from behind the dryer and then used his hands to choke Rocko until he was dead.

Taylor has been on the city force for five years. He has been suspended without pay.

Read more from the Baltimore Police Department.

The Baltimore Police Department is conducting an administrative investigation into the incident contained in the charges filed this morning by the Montgomery County Police Department against Officer Alec Taylor. Allegations of animal cruelty are taken seriously by the Baltimore Police Department. Over the course of the last year significant emphasis has been placed on developing and training investigators to handle animal abuse incidents in Baltimore. Alec Taylor is a five-year veteran of the Department will be suspended without pay.